Orly Purple Pleather

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone! I had a great last 2 days with a few more plan for today. Tomorrow, I start teaching summer school so it's back to the grind.

Today for you, I have Orly Purple Pleather. I really loved the swatches I saw of this, added it to my wishlist, and got it from a friend. I do have to say that I'm a bit disappointed though. I used 2 thin coats then one thicker one to even things out. I left plenty of time between each coat, but I ended up with bubbles, ridges, and a dent from not-quite dry polish. This swatch is from last week so perhaps I can blame on it the super hot weather we had. I love the pleather finish of this (so unusual!) so I really want it to work!

Happy birthday to me!

Today is my 27th birthday so of course I had to do birthday nails!

These are not only special because of the nail art but also because of the colors I used.
The base coat is OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston. I was born in Galveston, TX so this color means a lot to me! I used 4 coats here due to the squishy jelly nature of the polish.
The glitter used is the very appropriate Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday.
Then I used tons of other polishes to add on the balloons and cupcakes.

Happy (belated) 4th of July!

Sorry this post is a day late, but yesterday was pretty crazy. I also didn't get a chance to do my Independence Day nails until yesterday either so I had to go with something simple instead of a nail art design like I wanted to.

For the base, I used 1 thin and 1 thick coat of Revlon Royal (get this blue if you don't have it!). Then I added on 2 thin coats of OPI Rainbow Connection. The glitter in Rainbow Connection over the dark blue reminds me of fireworks.

Flower and Leaf Fimo Canes

I bought these pre-cut fimo shapes from eBay a while ago but haven't gotten around to using them.  I decided to try out both the flower and leaf shapes that I got along with a untried extra Brazilian polish I received in a swap.  The color is called Risqué Violeta Acinzentado. It's a dark purple with a very dusky quality and a tiny bit of shimmer that I tried to capture.

I won't go into detail about how to use fimo canes as there are many videos on places like YouTube that you can watch. I will have to say that I need a bit more practice on being neater using them. You can see some glue around the edges, and the only ones that are really laying flat are on my ring finger.

Glittery Leopard Print

In my quest to use up my untried polishes, I came up with this mani that uses two of them.

The silver glitter base is Milani One Coat Glitter Silver and the red is Milani One Coat Glitter Red Sparkle. Neither of them are actually one coat glitters, they are more like 1 1/2 coat so I ended up using 2.  The polish is pretty thick and it made it a bit hard to apply (notice all the glitter herpes on my skin where I couldn't get it off). I also found that dry time sucked too. I probably won't end up keeping these.

Then I freehanded a leopard print using the opposite colors. The red I used is Zoya Sooki, and I mixed a white and black to get the darker grey that I wanted.

Maybelline Lime Spritzer

This is another polish that needs to be layered over black, much like LA Colors Radiation. I didn't like this one as much though. One coat didn't seem to be enough, but two coats made the effect too intense.  It's really pretty polish, but I don't think that it's for me.

Glitter Gal Light as a Feather

I've been lemming this polish for a while and received it in a swap. I'm so excited to share it with you today.

Looking over other blog posts, Light as a Feather is fairly sheer and needs 3-4 coats to be opaque so I decided to layer it over 2 coats of Zoya Dove. Then I added 1 thick-ish coat Glitter Gal Light as a Feather.

Finally I added on some flowers using the following colors: Zoya Sooki (red), Sinful Colors Why Not (blue), Sinful Colors Amethyst (purple), Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up (orange), OPI Don't Mess with OPI (green).

This second picture is a bit blurry, but it really shows off the holographic nature of Light as a Feather well.

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black

There's been tons of posts on this color, mostly because it's cheap and so widely available.

I don't like it. It smells REALLY bad and never dried for me. I was able to just wipe it off once I finished taking these pictures. But since I already took the pictures, I'll still share with all of you.

Candeo Colors Sprouse

I love Candeo Colors polishes. They are beautiful, well-made, not impossible to get, and apply nicely.

For this mani, I used Essie Marshmallow as my base. I had to use 3-4 coats to get it not streaky and full coverage. And then it never dried even though I waited in between coats and even used a fast dry top coat between the final 2 coats.

I put 1 thick coat of Sprouse over it which made this mani beautiful! Sprouse contains tiny holographic glitters (kinda like what is in INM Northern Lights, but with TONS more), small white and black hexes, bigger white/silver/blue hexes, and black and white bar glitter in a clear base. With the glitter on it, Marshmallow took on a grey tone, but that's okay with me since I love grey polish.

On with the pictures including a close-up of the glitter fabulousness.

LA Colors Radiation

I have a lesson for you all today: don't judge a polish based upon what it looks like in the bottle.

Take for example this bottle of LA Colors Radiation that I found. It looks gorgeous in the bottle.

And then I put it on. I end up using 3 coats, and it looks boring like this. What happened to the pretty color?

So I decide to layer it over black, and OMG is it amazing! The polish completely changes and now I REALLY like it. The best part of all of this: I got it for $1 at a dollar store :)